Return the Catholic Church to the "People of God"

By Peter Donohue
St. Cloud Times
September 16, 2019

https://www.sctimes.com/story/opinion/2019/09/16/return-catholic-church-people-god-pope-francis-priest-abuse/2344763001/

I have been hesitant to tackle this topic since June, when I read an article by James Carroll in The Atlantic. My indecision was immediately erased recently when I read the results of the investigation into the expenditure of diocesan funds by Bishop Michael Bransfield in West Virginia.

What seriously offended me was the bishop’s closure of Catholic schools as he spent $2.4 millionof diocesan funds on private jets, luxury hotels, limousines, jewelry and fine dining between 2005 and 2018.

Carroll describes the Catholic Church as “the largest nongovernmental organization on the planet, through which selfless women and men care for the poor, teach the unlettered, heal the sick, and work to preserve minimal standards of the common good.” He correctly points out that Vatican II, way back in the 1960s, defined the Catholic Church as the “People of God."

The role of the clerical hierarchy in the church is that of servants of those people, not placed above them as rulers. Symbolic of this change brought about by Vatican II was moving the altar down from on high into the midst of the congregation.

Carroll asserts that what the council did not do was rid the church of “Clericalism, with its cult of secrecy, its theological misogyny, its sexual repressiveness, and its hierarchical power based on threats of a doom-laden afterlife, [which he contends] is at the root of Roman Catholic dysfunction.”

At first this may appear to be a very harsh claim, but on reflection it seems to be an accurate analysis of the problems plaguing the church today.

Carroll traces the current hierarchical structure to the fourth century when Constantine effectively established Christianity as the imperial religion. A diocese at that time was a Roman administrative unit. “A basilica, a monumental hall where the emperor sat in majesty, became a place of worship."

Worship moved from the home into churches and the church’s hierarchical structure similar to Imperial Rome developed. The structure took on feudal attributes in the middle ages and retains many of those characteristics today.

What started out as an egalitarian community described by Roman historian Flavius Josephus (at the time the Gospels were taking form) as “those that loved him [Jesus] at the first and did not let go of their affection for him."

Carroll contends that clericalism “explains both how the sexual-abuse crisis could happen and how it could be covered up for so long” (clericalism defined by Webster as: “a policy of maintaining or increasing the power of a religious hierarchy”).

It also explains how the financial abuse perpetrated by Bishop Bransfield could happen and continue for 15 years unchecked. Bransfield also faces allegations of sexual abuse by at least one young priest.

I had great hopes when Pope Francis was elected, and I still respect him. It is apparent he has opposition in his efforts to rid the church of what seems to be a systemic malady. Secrecy and the concentration of power in individuals appointed from the top down serves to create the potential for the absence of accountability, transparency and the elimination of abuse of all kinds.

We, as Catholics, must really question our current hierarchical structure where "Church Law provides for the excommunication of any woman who attempts to say the Mass, but mandates no such penalty for a pedophile priest.”

What’s worse is the sexual and financial abuse continues, permanently injuring countless people.

Carroll rightly observes: “On urgent problems ranging from climate change, to religious and ethnic conflict, to economic inequality, to catastrophic war, no nongovernmental organization has more power to promote change for the better, worldwide, than the Catholic Church.”

So he admonishes us not to walk away from the abuse caused by clericalism, but to take back the church into the hands of the “People of God." Even if that means not yielding to “clerical despots” and refusing to “let a predator priest or a complicit bishop rip [our] faith from [us]."

We may need to reorganize the church into the egalitarian community it was when it started and shed those who cling to clericalism hanging onto organizational structures that allowed abuse to fester returning to true transparency and adhering to a lifestyle exemplifying the essential message of Jesus Christ.

This is the opinion of Peter Donohue, who has been involved in the arts in Central Minnesota for more than 35 years. His column is published the third Tuesday of the month.